Caitlin was born and raised in a small town in Mid-Ohio. In the fall of 2021, she obtained her B.S. in Chemistry at Ohio Northern University. During her undergraduate studies, she worked under the supervision of Prof. David Kinder, synthesizing various tamoxifen derivatives and testing their anticancer activity. Further, she examined how factors that are known to increase susceptibility for trauma-, stressor-, and anxiety-related psychological disorders impact fear generalization/fear learning in human subjects under the supervision of Prof. Phillip Zoladz. Additionally. she completed an REU at West Virginia University under Prof. Gregory Dudley, where she synthesized analogs of a natural compound known to be an antagonist of protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type delta, an important therapeutic target for stimulant use disorder.